Truly Realistic Sound

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

Okay, if ArmA 1 or 2 was to have truly realistic sound, this is what would happen, according to my experience shooting firearms:

After the first shot your ears would ring. With a few more shots, the ringing in your ears would continue and sound would begin to get muffled, almost like you added cotton into your ears.

The U.S. Army protected us against hearing loss by making us wear ear plugs when we went to the qualification range, but when a firefight begins, how many soldiers shout to the enemy, "Wait a minute! I've got to put in my plugs!"

Thoughts? Experiences?

[POTS 0]

Okay, if ArmA 1 or 2 was to have truly realistic sound, this is what would happen, according to my experience shooting firearms:

After the first shot your ears would ring.  With a few more shots, the ringing in your ears would continue and sound would begin to get muffled, almost like you added cotton into your ears.

The U.S. Army protected us against hearing loss by making us wear ear plugs when we went to the qualification range, but when a firefight begins, how many soldiers shout to the enemy, "Wait a minute!  I've got to put in my plugs!"

Thoughts?  Experiences?

That depends on how close you are. I went on a simulative patrol. A person had shouted out enemy target at the 3 and had an m4 and began firing. I was about 15-20meters away and the sound isn't that bad. At the time I didn't know it was fake though, and it could have been my adrenaline that helped me cope. All I know though is my ears weren't ringing, and I wasn't really thinking about how loud it was.

[celery 8]

5.56 might not sound that bad but 7.62 is the bomb. However having a constant ring in your ears in a fight would just be annoying in a game.

[Lepardi 0]

Make the sounds like in Bad Company.

[Second 0]

No thank you to realistic sounds. I had my right ear ringing for several months, it's nuisance really. Listening whole life-time of that might make me nuts. Last nail in coffin was when one guy accidentally discharged his weapon 1 meters away from my right ear while barrel was directed to my overall direction (Learn to keep safety on you freaking baboons! ).

At distance over few meters even it ain't that bad but if barrel is bit behind you, like 1-2 meters to 4 o'clock (while firing past you, to 12 o'clock), it is whole another thing.

[max power 21]

People already complain about the high dynamic range sound engine tweaking volumes. Imagine constant tinnitus!

[Kirq 0]

From my very limited experience with real weapons I might say that Ak47 is really friggin LOUD, I thought it will be loud but it was louder then I expected. The shoting sound in ArmA1 is very weak and  way to quiet.

And a bit offtopic. One more thing, when I saw my fiends shoting AK47 i notced that it eject shell cassing with pretty high speed and they land far away from shoter. In Arma it looked like shell casings were appearing next to ejector and just fall to the ground verticaly. I hope it will be fixed in ArmA2.

[celery 8]

From my very limited experience with real weapons I might say that Ak47 is really friggin LOUD, I thought it will be loud but it was louder then I expected. The shoting sound in ArmA1 is very weak and  way to quiet.

And a bit offtopic. One more thing, when I saw my fiends shoting AK47 i notced that it eject shell cassing with pretty high speed and they land far away from shoter. In Arma it looked like shell casings were appearing next to ejector and just fall to the ground verticaly. I hope it will be fixed in ArmA2.

AK-47 and AK-74 are different guns. Not even the caliber is the same.

[chammy 7]

Yeah, the AK47 has a more crack sound, M16 is more of a rounded pop cause of the smaller bullet and powder container, but still to the inexperienced its not much different.

With that said I hope ArmA2 will allow us to change the sounds. I saw a few vids and they have improved some of the sound effects, probably even went out of the way to actually research them...a little, but I still hear some ArmA vanilla in there with little or no enviourment echo, same sounds you hear from Saving Private Ryan and just from war movies are in there, in the war movies they are still misinterpreted. I don't think ArmA2 has to have that tinnitus effect unless a grenade has exploded near you or on the other side of a wall, or shell via RPG or shape charge, then I would expect that, like in Project Reality or Call of Duty, Ghost Recon originals. I hope that ArmA2 has its volumes tweaked correctly, hence a little louder. Now the one thing that will help also is the dynamicness of sounds as BF2 had and GRAW has, BF has 2 sound types, one for first person and one for distant which is more muffled and more dull, Project Reality was able to stick 3 in for weapons, one for first person, one for 3rd and one for distant. I hope the same is with explosions, all this will help in immersion.

So far with Americas Army 3 there is actually a sound guy who is strictly doing the sounds as accurate as possible, the dude is actually researching and listening to the sounds and recording them , the way I would've done it of course, I had suggested that back in 2007 when they started talking about releasing a 3.0 . that is all.

[sparks50 0]

Ive been told that sounds will be different in distance(UH-1y sound topic) with the new and improved sound engine, but dunno how much.

[Lepardi 0]

Similar HDR sound engine to Battlefield Bad Company's engine would create so much better war atmosphere.

[Alex72 1]

From ArmA2 site "FACTS AND FIGURES":

• Mega SEF - brand new sound engine allowing very complex sound effects.

The Sounds

• 3D positioning with Doppler effect.

• 3D environment effects including distance based distortion, reverberation, occlusions and obstructions.

• Speed of sound and supersonic bullet crack simulation.

• 978 separate sound samples (footsteps, gear noises, movements etc.)

• Each vehicle sound is composed from more than 40 noises. (engine, friction of tyres on surfaces, etc.)

• New simulation of the sounds of aircraft and helicopters.

• Improved sound of tanks with separate noises of the engine and treads.

Sounds f-ing awesome to me.

Regards

Alex

[chammy 7]

But how about the weapons?

[Alex72 1]

Chammy, it seems weapons will get that BF thing you mentioned as it says "Distance occlusion, obstruction, distortion and reverbation". Thats on the distant sounds only and it seems it covers what you mentioned.

Im too concerned ofcourse that ARMA2 wont get up to the standard you or me want. More power, reverb, echos and just pure ga-bang holy shit type of experience. I must say that ARMA2 sounds brilliant compared to ARMA1 in sound quality of the little ive heard so far so it should be nice to fiddle with and see how close to realism it can get. I tested the VOP sound mod the other day and it had some of the type i want (some was out of place but). Bigger, sounds with a lot of crackling, thumping sounds in the wake of explosions etc. I love that. I love when sounds mix together and not just play 1 by 1 as there are no reverb/echo or aftermath sounds.

Anyway, with the effects stated at the ARMA2 site i think and hope it means that weapons will indeed sound different now in the distance. Also it states that cracks are simulated. Hopefully it means distant cracks and near cracks as well. Until we see a real fire fight where we are in the midst of it all we dont really know how it sounds. Just some individual sounds firing and we are right behind the shooter wont tell us much. If it isnt good enough i bet you will start testing its limits, and Ill help if you need it.

Lets see the last vid in 2 weeks. Maybe a huge fire fight will be taped by CNN this time hehe.

Regards

Alex

[oscar19681 0]

I hope it will be somewhat like brothers in arms hells highway when it comes to gunfire sounds. Does it everytime for me in immersion department

[Midhaven 0]

I don't realy bother with the original sounds, there will be plenty of soundspacks to choose from, one of them is bound to be good.

But to answer the question from the OP. I have to say I can't imagine firing a rifle for long periods of time without having earplugs or some kind of protection. In the swedish army we always used electronic ear muffs with noice cancelling. Of course a few shots have been fired next to me when I dind't have any protection on and yeah, that made my ears ring pretty bad. Especially 7.62 machine gun fire, listening to that shit for too long and you will go deaf.

[chammy 7]

I hope it will be somewhat like brothers in arms hells highway when it comes to gunfire sounds. Does it everytime for me in immersion department

Hmm, well I 've played Bros in Arms Hells highway, and some sounds are misinterpreted , some are good I admit but like exposions and all, UBI used the same sounds in Saving Private Ryan, the M1 Garands are quite a boom in them when fired and the Carbines and Enfield are very crack boomy also, but in the game they are too thin. The MG42/3 and even the Browning MG are very loud and big sounding but not in the game. There are a lot of sounds weapon that are not right in BIA but I'm not complaining.

Yeah Alex, I have to agree that VOP's sound mod is quite good, I'd use it myself also every so often. I am going to be updating CSM soon and I think someone asked to make a BI Key for it to play along with ACE. I will also hit u up upcoming sound projects also heh.

[Goeth 0]

72 @ Feb. 19 2009,03:48)]From ArmA2 site "FACTS AND FIGURES":

• Mega SEF - brand new sound engine allowing very complex sound effects.

The Sounds

• 3D positioning with Doppler effect.

• 3D environment effects including distance based distortion, reverberation, occlusions and obstructions.

• Speed of sound and supersonic bullet crack simulation.

• 978 separate sound samples (footsteps, gear noises, movements etc.)

• Each vehicle sound is composed from more than 40 noises. (engine, friction of tyres on surfaces, etc.)

• New simulation of the sounds of aircraft and helicopters.

• Improved sound of tanks with separate noises of the engine and treads.

Sounds f-ing awesome to me.

Regards

Alex

Really interesting stuff there.

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

Ambience like in this video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eD_Lo61rAw

...would be nice, especially if the sonic cracks sound like what you hear beginning at 1:03 of the video.

(Listen for a Tom Hanks sound-alike near the end...)

[sparks50 0]

At least we will be getting the sound-delay part of the video with the new sound engine

Is there other games that have sound delay simulated in them by the way? I cant remember any game where this has been a factor.

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

Delta Force 2 had it. Was very immersive.

I HATE the games that provide an instantly-heard "smack" sound effect to let you know that your bullet has hit its target.

I want to have to keep shooting a downed hostile to MAKE SURE he is dead!

[sparks50 0]

Cool. Was relatively young at the time so I guess my mind was other places

[Maddmatt 1]

Is there other games that have sound delay simulated in them by the way? I cant remember any game where this has been a factor.

Only ones I can think of are Operation Flashpoint and ArmA

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

Yeah, just fire a LAW at a distant hillside.

I noticed it when dueling TheAvonLady 1 Vs. 1 in DF2. She was on that distant hillside. After firing all of my LAWs at her, I continued to scan with my M4, I believe. While I scanned, she ran all of that distance behind the cover of other hills and rammed a KBar into my liver.

Not one to take lightly.

[Mcpl-Ripcord 0]

For me sound is one of the biggest immersion factors..it can look as cool as all hell but if the sounds are not correct it ruins the game

I use Chammy's sound mod,it is the closest all around sound mod I have heard, some sound mods get some parts right but for the most part Chammy's has a better total package of realistic sound (ei the amazing grenade sound)

I have 14 years in the Military and have had multiple overseas "vacations" there is truly something remarkable about the sounds of war,and if you can't get it right it destroys the immersion factor of the game.

so PLEASE I'm begging you do it right.